Space Perspective Completes The Capsule For The “Journey To The Edge Of Space”

As part of its Neptune spacecraft development, Space Perspective has unveiled a test capsule that, buoyed by a giant balloon, could take tourists into space next year. During the coming weeks, the pressurized capsule will undertake its first unmanned test flight, to be ready for commercial operation by 2025. Neptune is “only the third commercial suborbital spacecraft to ever be successfully built“, according to Space Perspective, following Virgin Galactic‘s SpaceShipTwo and Blue Origin‘s Crew Capsule.

Designed by London-based studio Of My Imagination, this teardrop-shaped capsule offers a markedly different experience than its predecessors. Instead of relying on a rocket engine, the Neptune capsule will be propelled by a hydrogen-filled balloon. As a result, the capsule will travel at a slow speed and emit a fraction of the pollutants generated by rocket engines.

It is expected that the “journey to the edge of space” will take six hours – in comparison to Virgin Galactic’s 90 minutes – and that passengers will be able to take advantage of onboard amenities such as a cocktail bar and access to WiFi.

Since the spaceship won’t experience zero-gravity altitudes, it will also have a fully functioning toilet, which the company is calling the Space Spa. At 4.9 meters in diameter, with an internal volume of 60 cubic meters, the spaceship has roughly two times the volume of its rivals.